Hellenic lets refinery upgrading contracts

By OGJ editorsHOUSTON, July 31 -- Hellenic Petroleum SA has awarded engineering, procurement, and construction management contracts to Foster Wheeler Ltd. for an upgrading project at the company's refinery at Thessaloniki in Northern Greece. The scope of the project is the production of low-sulfur fuels, which also results in significant environmental improvements.

Terms of the awards were not disclosed; the contracts will be included in Foster Wheeler's second-quarter 2008 bookings.

Foster Wheeler's scope comprises a 15,000 b/sd continuous catalytic reformer, modification of the existing atmospheric distillation unit in order to switch the operation from high- to low-sulfur crudes and revamp of the existing naphtha hydrofiner and crude light ends processing unit to increase the refinery's processing capacity to 26,000 b/sd for light products.

The project will increase gasoline and diesel oil production and is expected to be completed by yearend 2010.